1000 Trades Presents Political Therapy: An Evening with

Every thinking person knows that a great change is needed in our country – but where to begin, and what can we learn from before?

Author of the seminal The State We’re In, Will Hutton sets out where both the left and right have gone wrong over the course of the last century – and how we can rebuild a better Britain.

Two great traditions – ethical socialism and progressive liberalism – can be brought together to offer a different way forward. Hutton describes the views of their major thinkers, and their common vision of what he calls the ‘We Society’ – combining the ‘We’ and the ‘I’. The two strands of thought both believe in the duty to treat people fairly in a capitalist system that, without
guiderails, spirals into inequality, monopoly and exploitation.

Out of this shared worldview came the great reforming Liberal government of 1906–14, supported by Labour MPs who’d been elected in industrial areas with Liberal backing. This alliance, Hutton argues, was the great opportunity of modern British history. It was destroyed by the First World War. In 1945 a Labour government, informed by great Liberal intellectuals like Keynes and Beveridge, showed once again what can be achieved when the two progressive strands fuse.

Since then, our deeply unfair electoral system has allowed Conservatives to dominate government and commit a long series of great, avoidable errors. The Labour Party, fatally divided between socialist purity and timid pragmatism, must rediscover the ingredients that made for the success of the great reforming governments of the twentieth century.

Wil Hutton is a British journalist and author. He currently writes a regular column for the Observer, is the president of the Academy of Social Sciences, hosts its We Society podcast and is co-chair
of the Purposeful Company. He was formerly economics editor of the Guardian, editor-in-chief of the Observer and Principal of Hertford College Oxford. Hutton’s books include the bestselling The State We’re In, How Good We Can Be, The World We’re In and The Writing on the Wall

Enjoy a meal downstairs beforehand – book via 1000trades.org.uk

We regret that the venue is not wheelchair accessible